The American Meteorological Society @ametsoc falls into the consensus trap in a letter to Rick Perry

Yesterday, the American Meteorological Society (AMS) published a letter yesterday to U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, admonishing him for having the temerity to doubt that carbon dioxide is the “primary driver” of global warming.

In the interview you also mentioned that it should be quite acceptable to be a skeptic about aspects of the science. We agree, and would add that skepticism and debate are always welcome and are critically important to the advancement of science.

Yet, the very letter they sent contradicts this, suggesting that there is no debate nor room for skepticism about carbon dioxide being the primary driver of temperature change.

The fundamental problem of our knowledge boils down to the sample size. We only have about 100 or so years of temperature records that are worth anything and even the most recent records on all that good because they’re terribly polluted by the infrastructure of human existence itself. And further our understanding of atmospheric and oceanic cycles is even more limited in time than the case of global temperature data.

If you were to line up our period of first-hand scientific knowledge of Earth’s processes, against the period of humanity’s intelligence, it would just be a small speck on the timeline. To assume we have certainty in knowledge about Earth’s processes, when new processes are still be discovered, is pure folly.

Even today, we are discovering more about our atmosphere than we knew 30 years ago in June 1988 when Dr. James Hansen first declared it a problem, and there are studies that show that recent record breaking warmth, such as a paper just published in Nature, Yao et al. Distinct global warming rates tied to multiple ocean surface temperaturechanges. covered here on WUWT.

For the AMS to admonish Perry that there’s no room for debate on Carbon Dioxide as being the primary driver, is essentially to deny the process of science itself. Science is often right, and also often wrong, but just as often, it is self-correcting. If global warming hadn’t become such an entangled and messy social and political issue, it’s likely that science would have done some levels of self-correction on the issue already.

For example, it was once believed that the Earth’s plates did not move, until plate tectonics came along. Alfred Wegener proposed continental drift in 1912, but it took until the 1960’s for it to become generally accepted, when a drastic expansion of geophysical research, driven by the cold war, produced evidence that reopened and eventually settled the debate.¹ Science self-corrected, but it took decades because scientists are often reluctant to embrace change which threatens the validiity of their own work. It was also generally believed that stress caused stomach ulcers, until a clinician, exasperated by lack of attention to his pointing out that the real cause was the bacterium Heliobacter Pylorii infecting the stomach lining², had to prove it against the consensus, and drank a bacterial cocktail and developed an ulcer himself. He won the Nobel prize for defying that consensus³.

Science that fails to account for the possibility of being wrong is of no virtue.

The AMS should lead in science by setting an example, by showing that even in the face of overwhelming consensus on an issue, there must be room for doubt, and thus room for self-correcting science. It only takes one finding in science to refute consensus, no matter whether it’s 97%, 99%, or 100%. Science is not infallible.

220 thoughts on “The American Meteorological Society @ametsoc falls into the consensus trap in a letter to Rick Perry”

Did the AMs red the paper of Santer, Mann et al. that stated the existence of the socalled pause and that the models couldn’t predict that and the models could not calculate it afterwards. So the conclusion is: the models are wrong!!!

The Worthlessness of the AMS Letter is Exemplified by the Sentence; “However, there are also very solid conclusions that are based on decades of research and multiple lines of EVIDENCE.” I will grant decades of Model Research but, please indicate ANY evidence of which is spoken here. The main reason there is skepticism about CAGW is the complete and utter LACK OF EVIDENCE that this is Manmade and not part of several Natural Phenomena affecting Planet Earth! Models and Theories are NOT EVIDENCE, especially since those “decades of research” have proven to be totally without validity in regard to the Predictions they have espoused!

There are indeed multiple lines of evidence that contradict the CAGW hypothesis.
* CO2 ppm has historically lagged temp
* almost 20 year hiatus in warming, while CO2 emissions increased dramatically during the same period.
* more extreme weather events occurred at lesser CO2 ppm (e.g., early 1900s, 1896)
Anyone care to mention other lines of evidence?

just this, correlation does not equal causation … BUT and this is the big one on the other side of that coin for causation their MUST be correlation … 1940 – 1970 CO2 up, temperatures down … 1970 – 2000 CO2 up, temperatures up … CO2 and Temperatures are simply NOT correlated … thus rising CO2 cannot be the causation of rising temperatures …

Kaiser, what you say is true for a situation in which there is only one driver, or where the driver you are studying is by far the strongest driver.
There could be correlation, but it is masked by other factors that you haven’t learned how to control for yet.

missing hot spot ? Seems particularly important to me since the issue is almost qualitative, not quantitative, with less room for hair-splitting arguments about data reliability, length of record, El Nino spikes, feedback factors etc etc etc.

Exactly, OE!
It either is or it isn’t. It doesn’t depend on the meaning of “is.”
If it isn’t, the whole CAGW edifice collapses. Since it isn’t, everything else the warmistas trot out is worthless drivel. IPCC climate models are bunk.

but it is masked by other factors
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you don’t know that. you might believe it is masked, but it could be that the science has causality backwards.
look at the ice age records. temperatures always shoot up when CO2 is low, and temps drop when CO2 is high. the exact opposite of what the AMS says should happen.

There is theoretical and lab-based evidence that additional CO2 should warm the planet slightly, everything else being equal. “Evidence” that assumptions about feedbacks leading to 3 times CO2 warming is just speculation, not science. The dynamics of our water and atmospheric systems is obviously not well modeled, given the dismal record of models’ projections of each and every climatic parameter.
The gradual, up and down warming of the planet since the end of the Little Ice Age is evident. The end of the 20th Century increase, used to tune climate models, is qualitatively no different than early 20th Century warming. Glossing over this fact with unfounded and differing assumptions about aerosols in the various climate models is fundamentally misleading, if not outright lies.
The lack of significant warming in the 21st Century, with increasing and record levels of CO2, would lead a normal scientist to question how that could happen. Instead, we get politicized entities telling us that the science is settled. Hogwash!
Real scientists would look into the obvious deviations of radiosonde and satellite atmospheric temperature estimates from surface based estimates. In the 20th Century they were in general agreement. The last two decades have shown significant deviations. Why? Is this consistent with their “multiple lines of evidence?”
We know the CAGW craze is a product of self interest by well-funded NGOs, rent-seeking by green energy profiteers, bureaucratic and academic grant-seeking and career enhancement and so on. Politicians jump on this for obvious reasons. Then there is ego gratification through media attention. Hollywood!

“There is theoretical and lab-based evidence that additional CO2 should warm the planet slightly, everything else being equal.”
But, it is far from equal.
1) The CAGW “science” says that the upper tropical troposphere has to be warming faster than the surface below it. All attempts to find this “hotspot” have failed and, in fact, NASA has reported that this region of the atmosphere has been warming gently for woy over 30 years,
2) That is the least of the problem with this “science”. As this region of the atmosphere is -17 deg C and the surface is 15 deg C, there is no possible way for the upper tropical troposphere to warm the surface; just thermodynamically impossible.
With this horrendous failure, CAGW simply stopped touting their “science” and opted for “the science is settled, sit down and shut up” as their defense.
3) As the climate models do not model night-time, they are patently failures. CO2 and water vapor may convert some IR radiation to heat in the atmosphere during the day but they just as readily do the opposite, such that during the day , they are saturated and have zero effect, working both ways.
It is at night that these gases, more correctly called “radiative gases,” work unopposed, converting heat energy in the atmosphere to IR which is then lost to space. As the surface is always hotter than the air, downwelling IR is reflected back upward, which is why “lost to space” applies quite well. This explains why the air chills so quickly after sunset and why breezes kick up so quickly around the shadows of scudding clouds on a sunny day. The latter gives an idea how fast these gases can work.

the obvious deviations of radiosonde and satellite atmospheric temperature estimates from surface based estimates.
========
this shows the surface is warming faster than the atmosphere, which is opposite what was predicted for GHG warming. strong evidence that whatever is causing the warming, it isn’t GHG.

Ferd, our exchange:
[Me] “the obvious deviations of radiosonde and satellite atmospheric temperature estimates from surface based estimates.
========
[You] this shows the surface is warming faster than the atmosphere, which is opposite what was predicted for GHG warming. strong evidence that whatever is causing the warming, it isn’t GHG.”
It amazes me that climate science types do not analyze nor respond the implications of this rather obvious fact, at least publicly. All I have seen is attacks on and misinterpretation of radiosonde and satellite estimates.
When Dr. Christy presents data to Congress showing a divergence between models and radiosonde and satellite estimates, one of the tricks of his critics is to ignore radiosonde estimates in their entirety. It is revealing that they do not criticize radiosonde estimates, even though radiosondes show the same magnitudes and trends of satellite estimates.
Real scientists would publicly bend over backwards to explore data critical of their hypothesis.
IPCC climate models are bunk.

Hello, Dave, I just read the following reply submitted by a reader to the Yahoo news article that summarized the Rick Perry/AMS story. It sounds like a really good thumbnail of the debate, but I’m no expert, so I’d love to hear what you (and anyone else here) thinks about the following. Thanks!
Aka M.W.Plia. There should be, in understandable language such as a lawyer uses when addressing a jury, a detached and reasoned explanation of the uncertainties surrounding the issue of man-made global warming. The following is my attempt. The man-made climate change concern originates with the atmospheric portion of CO2 increasing from 0.028% (measured in ice cores at 280 parts per million) for pre-industrial times to the current 0.04% (400ppm) and the portion of that increase that is from fossil fuel combustion. The 150 year instrumental record indicates an increase of 0.8 degrees C. to the mean, which coincides with the climate’s recovery from The Little Ice Age (1250-1850AD) that started with the end of the Medieval Warm Period (750-1250AD). The actual mechanism (the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect) is not in question. CO2 is a radiatively active molecule, it is largely infrared resonant at an amplitude of 15 microns for which the corresponding temperature is over 50 degrees C. below zero. This is why the AGW play occurs well above the cloud deck (still within the troposphere) where there is no water vapor. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere raises the ERL (Effective Radiation Level) to a colder level thus disturbing the equilibrium where outgoing terrestrial longwave IR (infrared radiation) balances incoming solar shortwave IR. The accepted math yields a forcing calculation of 3.7 watts/meter squared per atmospheric doubling of CO2 (560ppm) from pre-industrial levels (280ppm) which translates to roughly an increase of +1 degree C to the surface mean temperature. To the extent this “increase” can change the climate is where the science ends and the supposition begins as 3.7 is less than .3% of incoming solar at 1362 watts/meter squared. Where the concern kicks in is the positive water vapour feedback hypothesis. The IPCC endorsed numerically modeled temperature projections to 2100 include an assumed feedback response over and above the “known” effect of CO2 (estimated .5 to 1.5C per doubling of concentration) due to increased water vapour from the Anthro CO2 warming. Water vapour is the most abundant and forceful ‘greenhouse’ gas in the atmosphere, ergo even more greenhouse warming, supposedly two or three times as much as the original increase in CO2. The higher estimates of climate sensitivity, the origin of the catastrophic scenarios thus the need to mitigate, are based on the water vapor feedback/amplification “triggered” by AGW concept. However, there are uncertainties. More water vapor from increased evaporation (itself a profound cooling effect) means more daylight clouds in the lower atmosphere which reflect incoming solar while shading the surface, thus a significant cooling effect to counter the AGW effect along with the nightly warming effect of the low level clouds. CO2 has risen monotonically since we began measuring it 60 years ago. During this time there have been decadal periods where the temperature mean has risen, fallen and times when it has gone in neither direction. So the instrumental record either does not support AGW theory, or the effect is statistically negligible. Either way the need to impose taxes, a cap and trade system and other costly methods (think replacing coal with wind/solar) to reduce combustion emissions is not justified. Regards M.W.Plia.

The ground would roll under us during B-52 strikes!
Anyway, B-52, yours appears to be a good thumbnail sketch of the CO2 discussion. However, I am not a physicist; but have a good math, engineering and science background and have followed the debate for awhile.
It is demonstrated that IPCC climate models fail to account for water vapor and clouds accurately, among other failings. Their hindcasts of the various climatic features outside their late 20th Century tuning period are dismal, especially at the regional level. They also failed to predict the nearly 20-year hiatus in global warming.
Dr. Judith Curry has stated that IPCC climate models are not sufficient to fundamentally alter our society, economy nor energy systems. When people bandy about “multiple lines of evidence” for catastrophic CO2 warming, they really mean models. All the rest of it relies on those. Minor warming and its effects on other climatic parameters (ice, etc.) is not proof of CO2 warming.

A few minutes ago I had the great joy of listening to a scientist with integrity on BBC Radio 4, she is the Chief Scientist of the Scottish govt. The BBC presenter kept trying to get her to be a scientiVIST, by expressing a view on the ban on GM crops. The BBC regularly encourages scientivism, giving unquestioning platforms to those who do it, such as presidents of the Royal Society.
The wonderful lady from Scotland declined the invitation, saying that her job was just to give advice on scientific knowledge. She should have talked about risk, science attempts to quantify it, but must not stray into political decisions about whether or not particular risks are worth taking.

Heard it, Climanrecon. Had to keep allowing for the fact that she started every (non) answer with the word: ‘so’. She most definitely did not commit to offering her (scientific) opinion on whether to advise the Scottish Parliament that GM was OK to pursue – as her predecessors had done. Quite an object lesson in dodging the issue.

Hansen has been lead propagandist longer than many people realize. In the late ’60s, when the Club of Rome apparently decided on anthropogenic “climate change” as a useful trope for social control, the scientific consensus (of one, i.e., James Hansen) was that global cooling caused by industrial soot was going to end civilization, by about 1990. Hansen was simply projecting the cooling period that lasted from 1940-1970 into the indefinite future. Today of course they are projecting the warming period that lasted from 1970-2000 or so. Since then, a plateau, despite rising emissions. Better hide that inconvenient truth!

Unfortunately, the AAAS, APS. and AGU (among others) have also climbed aboard the alarmist train. And it is chugging away toward a cliff where the rails end. The members are never consulted about these open letters or published statements. They don’t even open them up to comment from the members before they are released. If you were to complain about it they would kindly explain to you, “Shaddup!”
Let’s face it, this letter and the statement on global warming are all about virtue signalling. The governing bodies of the these scientific societies are less concerned about the science then they are about appearing to be on the right side of history. Last stop Wile E. Coyote-ville.

Yet, not a shred of detail is provided in the letter to clarify any understanding of what these unresolved questions are. Instead, the letter just bullies this statement aside, in favor of sticking to the stance that IGNORES these very questions. It’s a fake way to look open, while being totally closed.

Interpretation of the letter: Rick Perry, we, the media, environmental groups, and about half of all politicians have been lying/prevaricating to the public about globul warming. And now you want to come and tell the truth and spoil it? Our motto is that if you tell the big lie often enough, people will begin to believe it. Don’t ruin it for us.

My letter to Rick Perry: Please defund and stop all environmental grants for which you have any influence. Please fire every gov’t employee and contractor under your purview. Shut down the DOE. And having done these good works, ask Mr. Pruitt to do the same with the EPA, then resign your post – job well done.

Menicholas June 22, 2017 at 2:20 pm
Last sentence of first paragraph.
It is a word for word quote.

Thanks.
Got it. The letter is a scanned image, not text. Trying to find the quote by word searching doesn’t work. My browser isn’t broken but I’m slightly defective.
Incontrovertible … Everyone quotes “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” from the Princess Bride. A bad guy, Vizzini, is in love with his theories. He’s incapable of seeing the obvious facts of the case and realizing that his logic and theories are defective. One of the great scenes in the movie involves him trying to logic out which of two goblets of wine is poisoned.

Vizzini: You only think I guessed wrong! That’s what’s so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned! Ha ha! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders – the most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia” – but only slightly less well-known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line”! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha…
[Vizzini stops suddenly, his smile frozen on his face and falls to the ground dead]

He suffers from the false premise that only one goblet is poisoned.

Buttercup: And to think, all that time it was your cup that was poisoned.
Man in Black: They were both poisoned. I spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder. link

I look on Vizzini as a great example of expert over-claiming and expert overconfidence. It helps that he kinda looks like a certain climate scientist if you squint right.
A couple of false premises bring the whole CAGW edifice crashing down like a house of cards.

There certainly seems to be a great bit of dispute regarding these indisputable findings.”
I find these indisputable findings to be quite disputable.
“They keep using that word ‘indisputable’, I don’t think it means what they think it means.”

The money assertion, “[I]ndisputable findings have shaped our current AMS statement on Climate Change, which states, “It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-caused increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases…”
… shows that the AMS has abandoned the scientific method. Apart from unverified and inaccurate climate models, there is no reason whatever to think that so-called greenhouse gases have, or even can, induce changes in the climate.
And — Earth to AMS, over — the change in climate over the past half century has not been particularly rapid.
The entire consensus position is a mockery of science.

“Skepticism that fails to account for evidence is no virtue.” HUH???
What evidence would that be? Predictions ARE NOT EVIDENCE. How about, skeptical of the validity of the evidence..
Let’s turn the phrase back at them:
“Dogma that persists in the face of contradicting evidence is not science but religion.”

This defense of the “science is settled”, “debate is over” position is exactly what causes skeptics to dig in their heels even more.
There are levels of confidence that can be objectively “estimated” regarding how much warming has been caused by humans. Along with that, there are many benefits from increasing CO2 on this greening planet. Over weighting global climate model projections of temperature, while under weighting nature climate cycles, beneficial weather patterns recently, biology, agronomy, photosynthesis and other relevant science, especially what life on this planet prefers(outside of this group of humans that claim to be speaking for all of life) for its CO2 and temperature level……is closed minded.
Reading a letter like this one from the AMS causes skeptics to be even MORE skeptical because it shows that this side is unable to grasp many authentic points. It provides disingenuous, general statements/claims of representing skeptical science, while promoting an idea that contradicts skeptical science.
When somebody fails to see what you see as fact backed evidence that supports your position and instead, tries to convince you(again) of their position(that you have been looking at for 2 decades) using the “we are the authorities” narrative, it often has the complete opposite effect…….you resort to defending what you believe to be authentic in an even stronger manner.

Notice the overconfidence in decadal-level relationships when those are the most likely to be subject to unrelated cyclical factors and mis-assignment to CO2 correlation. That is a major overstep and generally unscientific assertion. Their mixture of uncertainty statement followed by strident certainty in the letter is misplaced and looks to be the result of advocacy-driven pressure in its construction. So who stacked the votes in the phrasing committee?

Water vapor is the terrestrial control knob of Earths Atm. And in fact provides almost an exact cancelling negative feedback to the effects of increasing Co2.
Series like BEST, aren’t temp series at all (really), but they are calculation of what they think surface temps are, it’s the Drake equation of climate science.

DonM wrote: “I think the Drake Equation could easily be corrected … by my calcs it should be gives an estimate that is 1.76284% to high.”
Wickedly funny, Don. Thanks from nerds everywhere (at least, those nerds who understand irony).

Did the AMS happen to mention what caused the Medieval Warm Period? Did they explain why increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has failed to warm the planet in a significant way during this century? Can they produce evidence that emissions of carbon dioxide caused 20th Century warming and not natural effects?

The answer to all of your questions is, “No, of course not, because THEY do not see their role as explaining anything, but, like the defense-department assessing national security risks associated with climate change, they merely appeal to the IPCC’s authority on such matters.”Answering the hard questions is not our job. We merely apply the supreme authority’s answers to those hard questions.
IPCC = The Wizard of Oz [sing the tune now – We’rrrrrrrrrrrrrrre off to see … ]

Warmistas never attempt to explain inconvenient facts or justify their sweeping assertions.
They do science by decree, not by using the scientific method, or even by dint of logical argumentation.
There are at least ten separate lines of evidence that by themselves ought to have been enough to forever disprove the notion of CO2 as the temperature control knob of the atmosphere…and those are just the big ones off the top of my head.
Never has anything disproven so thoroughly been believed by so many.
In my view, anyone who is on board with any of these ideas… that CO2 controls temperatures of the whole Earth over time, that warmer temps are not just assuredly bad but catastrophic, that humans can adjust the future temperature of the Earth with nonsensical political agreements and international extortion, that sea level rise is accelerating, that higher CO2 will cause the oceans to acidify and that this is bad for marine life and especially shelled organisms, that the climate regimes of the earth have been highly stable for centuries and millennia until the past few decades, that sea, mountain, and continental ice concentrations and amounts has not been undergoing long term cycles of waxing and waning since observations of such have been made, that anything unusual or unprecedented is or has occurred regarding weather or changes in the weather in recent decades as compared to all the time which came before industrialization, that 97% of scientists believes in any of the above, or that even if they did that this constitutes evidence of anything at all being true or not…well…that person is no scientist.
In fact they are the opposite of one.
There is no room for allowing for honest mistakes anymore…all warmistas, every single one of them, is either an ignoramus who parrots what others say while not actually knowing enough determine the veracity of such, or is deliberately looking the other way while others lie, cheat, and exaggerate, or is an outright liar.
Those are the only three possibilities.
Which category any particular person falls into is relatively unimportant…all are complicit and thus responsible.
Time to stop sugarcoating it.
Time to call an ignoramus and ignoramus.
Time to call a dishonorable enabler a dishonest enabler.
Time to call a liar a liar.

The great thing about indisputable theories ( hypotheses, actually) is that you don’t have to defend them or explain them or do anything really. Especially not science! That would be like the world’s self professed best trick skier doing actual stunts-where something could go wrong!

There is no observational evidence that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has caused warming.
Satellite observations of global atmospheric temperature anomaly conclusively show that the global temperature now is within 0.2C of 1980. That’s not significant.
Surface temps are known to be faulty due to improper merging of data and unjustified post hoc adjustments. Properly maintained Individual surface stations in stable rural locations show zero warming. For example, the Amundsen-Scott science station shows zero warming since 1958.
Changes in atmospheric CO2 follow natural temperature changes on all time scales.
MODTRAN shows zero surface warming when CO2 is changed from 300ppm to 400ppm.
Global precipitation anomaly using NCDC KNMI explorer shows no change since 1900, the monthly data plot is a flat line, that’s a slope of zero.
Proxy data show that temps can and do meander naturally on century and longer time scales.
The next significant shift in global climate will certainly be to the cold side. That’s a historical fact.
Anecdotal glacial melting in the recent era is simply explained by increased surface soot.

Do you seriously believe that Russian temperature records from, say, 1917-1950 are reliable?
You don’t really expect a rational person to believe that people were making accurate daily observations all over Russia during the Revolution or during the Sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad? In Siberia? Are you kidding?
Do you honestly believe that Chinese temperature records from, say, 1913-1980 are reliable?
Do you really expect anybody to believe that accurate daily temperatures were recorded in China during the Revolution or “The Great Leap Forward?”
Do you seriously believe that Sub-Saharan African temperatures from, say 1850-1975 are accurate?
Please don’t tell us you think accurate daily temperature recordings were made in Sub-Saharan Africa during any part of the 19th century and most of the 20th.
Do you really believe that oceanic temperatures from, say 1800-1970 are accurate? ( as we know, the oceans cover 70% of the earth’s surface).
Do you really believe there were accurate daily temperature observations made in the Bering Sea or the Weddell Sea or in the middle of the Pacific at any time before the advent of satellite observations in 1979?
Are you kidding me?
All this is even prior to considering the adjustments made for the UHI effect.
These are measurement error and uncertainties in excess of the putative change in global temperatures.
The truth of the matter is that climate “science” has absolutely no idea whatsoever whether there has been warming or not.

I think there is some fairly solid evidence that there was a Little ice Age, and that it influenced the climate regimes of the Earth on a global basis for several centuries, and that it ended sometime in the mid to late 19th century.
There is also strong evidence that the period of time centered on the 1930s was far warmer in all of the places that have records with any degree of reliability…provided one uses the actual records as they were measured at the time and disregard the fraudulent “adjusted data” sets that do one thing and one thing only…make the historical records conform to the changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
But you are right John…when the people who keep historical records and create the new records are known to be falsifying those records, they are worthless and unfit for any purpose of science.
And how much fraud does it take to know when people are lying and the truth is the opposite of what they say? Generally speaking…people with the truth on their side do not make up big giant lies.
Regarding changes that may or may not have occurred over the whole earth for the past 150 years or so…serious thought must be given to whether it is possible that the United States is somehow not representative of the whole Earth, broadly and over the long term of years and decades.
We have very good records for the US going back quote a while, and those records, when examined as recorded, show cooling periods and warming periods…but mostly cooling.
It is more than a stretch of credulity that the one place we have good records for and is a large continental area which borders several oceans, has a full range of landforms and is broad in north-south and east-west extent…that this one place is somehow diverging from the rest of the world over many decades.
Over a period of months…sure.
Over a period of a decade? Seems very doubtful.
Over a multi-decadal period? I would like to hear the explanation for how that is possible.
The one place we know about for sure…
Which other places are bucking a long term global trend?
And what kid of long term records do we have for those places?

Exactly, When no “Tropospheric Warm Zone” could be identified, (That’s good news.)
I waited for the celebrations in the “News” that CO2 was not the global warmer that had been feared.
What, No celebration of Earth’s immunity to CO2 rise.
I smelled a rat.
Voila! another “Climate Skeptic” was born. – me.
Further, after the “Tropospheric Warm Zone” could not be found, their “hypothesis” was never adjusted and re-tested. The Scientific Method had been abandoned.
Now, I’m not as skeptical as I am sure.

“Now, I’m not as skeptical as I am sure.”
Well said.
I put myself in that camp as well.
I know for sure and without any doubt that the warmistas are completely full of crap and that it is just a matter of time before the whole world knows it, and on that day the Hall of Climate and Science Shame will be seeking a large amount of land for their new wing.
Some of these people will be known long into the future as perpetrators of the worst sc@m and scandal in history…by miles.
They will be famous and known to all, for hundreds and likely thousands of years, as the terrible people they are…the very worst sort.
History will not be kind to them.
I expect their very names will come to be synonyms for all sorts of epithets and crimes.

‘In the interview you also mentioned that it should be quite acceptable to be a skeptic about aspects of the science. We agree, and would add that skepticism and debate are always welcome and are critically important to the advancement of science.’
This is simply the lip-service provided before predetermined conclusions are imposed.

There seems to be an endless chain of people who believe that CO2 is the main driver of global warming solely because they heard it from someone with authority and assume that they applied due dilligence in coming to that conclusion. In my work there have been times where we have been repeatedly told by managers and execs that something can’t be done, then after following the chain to find out why, we eventually come to the lowly person who would do the actual work and are told yes, it can be done. It’s just that nobody ever asked because they all just assumed it can’t.

Our local TV weatherman is a certified AMS member and he can’t predict tomorrow’s weather seemingly half the time.
Yesterday’s forecast for today was for overcast skies and no rain. “All the rain will be north of us”. From the radar it appears about 60% of the radar beam coverage is showing rain and it is filling in. Plus there are quite a few embedded heavy rain showers. Raining at my house. Missed that one.
The real issue is all they do is look at the models and “future cast” and never stick their head out the window anymore.

Sadly, this sentiment does not reflect the beliefs of a strong minority of AMS members, as evidenced in the surveys of their members. The only reason I remain an AMS member is the weak hope that us skeptics can help steer the organization less to the left than it would otherwise be …

I gave up membership a few years ago but was making a contribution to the education fund instead of paying dues but this year’s actions have made reconsider that decision as well. I can not longer support the organization in any way.

I, too, remain a member in the forlorn hope that things will turn around once the wheels fall off the bandwagon. When I receive the annual candidate list for AMS and AAAS (section W) elections, I carefully peruse candidate’s statement. If they so much as pay lip-service to CAGW or the like, I do not vote for them. There are times I cast no vote for any candidates for a given office. I have yet to see anyone brave enough to question global warming or speak up for skepticism, but I live in hope.

Mumbles, you should run!
In a multi-candidate slate, if you clearly state that you are a CAGW skeptic and 30%(?) of the members have a similar leaning, then you would have an excellent chance of winning a slot.
Even if you cannot change policy, then having one honest skeptic on the board should stop some of their shenanigans.

This is a great idea.
In fact, it may be about time to go around and get every single person who is a scientist and get them on record, and compile the real numbers.
I am actually sick…SICK…of hearing people repeat that 97% garbage that was never true and was debunked almost as fast as people asserted it.
Those who invented those numbers were telling obvious lies and should have been laughed out of town.
To hear the previous POTUS, or Bill Nye, or Neil Degrasse Tyson, or CEOs testifying before congress…or anybody at all really…use that bogus statistic in 2017, and say it with a straight face, when it is miles from true, is misrepresented as to what it was originally purported to begin with, and means nothing as evidence even if somehow it was true…well
I seriously cannot understand how anyone who has the training and base of knowledge and the specifics of the issue to…who basically knows enough to know the truth…can remain calm and civil and not even call it out when these lies are told over and over again to a gullible public who are literally incompetent to discern the truth from the malarkey.
It is simply too much.
It is not a mistake…it is a fraud.
It is not a disagreement…it is a case of con artists being found out and having them just lie bigger.
Anyone who knows what is actually going on has a moral and ethical responsibility to say what they know at every opportunity and to do so in clear language and with no ambiguity.
Even is only for the children.

I hope you’re serious and agree wholeheartedly. If you knew me, you would know I’m just not wholehearted about anything but I can be about stopping this atrocious corruption of science and economic sense. I actually believe that the fate of the Western world is hanging on this issue and the failure of the public to understand how deeply they are being betrayed by our political class.

I am completely serious.
And as well, i am also the sort that is on most subjects and most of the time rather phlegmatic…I am just not given to sitting around fretting.
But this issue is different.
Completely different.
I agree that the eventual fate of our society is literally at stake here…do we continue on with a free enterprise capitalist democratic republic, or do we swing towards worldwide socialism, deindustrialization, a society that programs rather than educates children…
And yes…I also think that much and likely most of the public has little idea of the breadth and scope of the lies, fraud, and betrayal of trust which is being perpetrated upon them.

“American Meteorological Society” Seems they have nothing better to do then lecture the head of the department of energy. Hmm, could any of you people who are member give them a ring and point out that it is very likely that Mr Perry is a bit busy. We just had a tropical storm plow into the gulf states, there is a old fashion heat wave in the southwest. Which is after a winter and spring that dumped record breaking snow in the Rockies and California. Ah, is all this heat, you know melting the snow, I have not heard a peep. That is a lot of water up there. I would expect flooding but then that is just me. Oh and Jellystone is acting up again.
Maybe they could see their way to concentrating on some important stuff.
michael

Because the 1930’s was a lot hotter than today. The 1930’s was an extreme weather decade and its deleterious effects were felt around the world. Today is nothing like the 1930’s. Today is a walk in the park.

Richard,
Seems you believe that C02 has caused the warming we’re seeing in the Arctic? Do I have that correct?
Using your graph, it shows the Arctic being at a relatively cold point in the 1960s and 70s, which is true, people were all worried about global cooling, I remember it well.
Since the 1960s and 70s the earth has warmed by 7/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit, but the Arctic has warmed 4F-7F (Depends on which study you want to believe) I believe it’s closer to 7F. How can that be?
Come on, show me how smart you are!
If you think it’s caused by reduced albedo, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn NY, and it’s a nice bridge too, I will sell it to you for just $10,000.00!
Good luck.

Thanks for that Arctic Temperature chart, Richard M. I can add to the other charts “from around the world” that show the same surface temperature profile as the U.S. surface temperature chart (circa 1999), said profile being that the 1930’s-40’s is as hot or hotter than subsequent years.
None of the unaltered historic surface temperature charts look like the Hockey Stick chart. Instead they look like the Hansen 1999 U.S. surface temperature chart. We should consider the Hansen 1999 U.S. temperature chart as representative of the *whole* world. It is a much better fit than the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart.
Look at the charts below.https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Image929_shadow.png/06/Image929_shadow.png
The one on the left is the Hansen 1999 U.S. chart, and the one on the right is the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick surface temperature chart. Now tell me, which temperature profile does the Arctic Temperature chart resemble the most?
The answer is obvious. And it applies to just about all the unaltered charts I have seen from around the world. None of the unaltered surface temperature charts resemble the Hockey Stick chart. The Hockey Stick chart is all alone.
The Hockey Stick chart makes it look like the Earth’s temperature is getting hotter and hotter year after year. Which is the purpose of the Hockey Stick chart. It has been dishonestly customized to promote the CAGW narrative.
But the real temperature profile, the one on the left shows the 1930’s as being 0.5C hotter than 1998, which makes it 0.4C hotter than 2016, the suppposed “hottest year evah!”.
The reality is we have been in a temperature downtrend since the 1930’s. But that doesn’t fit in with the CAGW narrative so a few dishonest climate scientists decided to cook the books and make it fit. See the Climategate emails for details on their dishonesty.

Really skeptical, you are really an ignoramus…or a liar.
Hard to say which with limited information, but as I said above…it hardly matters. You are spreading lies and are therefore complicit in the fr@ud.
TA and Richard M,
Lets not forget…by 1998-1999, what was accepted and published everywhere from textbooks to international science conferences as the correct chart of worldwide temperature trends as of the late 1970s had already been altered to get the charts shown by TA above.
By the mid 1970s all of the warming in the first half of the 20th century had been erased, and glaciers were growing all over the world, Arctic ice was increasing, and global cooling was very much a concern.
We have already had to suffer through and debunk years of warmista lies about this cooling trend, and how well documented and accepted it was.
People who claimed to be climate scientists and researchers intoned with solemn manner and straight face that global cooling was nothing more than an outlandish blurb discussed in a single issue of Newsweek magazine.
Who can forget this video (below), which though from a program noted for sensationalizing news, was nevertheless spot on in capturing the concerns of the time. Some well known names appear on this program, and although the meme was the opposite of the one now in vogue, some had the same penchant for catastrophic and gloomy outlooks.
The first IPCC report noted satellite data on sea ice from the early parts of the 1970s, which showed sea ice see-sawing around but generally increasing greatly during the 1970s.
But now everyone has swallowed the lie that no satellite data existed prior to about 1980. True? No.
Convenient for their tall tales? You betcha!
And for any that have the notion that somehow the “adjustments” and deletions to these historical records and trend charts are justified…well…we can sample written accounts from newspapers, periodicals, and the journals of various explorers to see which charts are consistent with actual observations at the time.
What we find are many stories and accounts of rapidly declining Arctic sea ice and glaciers in the 1920s, for example, at a time which the revised warmista charts show was far cooler than the 1970s and the present.
And the documented growth of ice all over the world in the 1970s occurred, according to warmista charts, during a period of flat or rising temps that were far higher than the 1920s when ice was rapidly melting.
If there is anyone who needs to see the charts and historical accounts of which I speak…just say so…I will be happy to post as many specific examples as anyone wants.
Really skeptical, you are really using the wrong handle.
I can list some ones more appropriate to the sort of person you really are if you want.https://youtu.be/L_861us8D9M

Really Skeptical,
So I guess you support the Stalinist erasure of the world heat record from Libya in 1922, ie from the global warming cycle of the 1910s to ’40s which you claim was only in the USA. Is there no CACA lie, no matter how shameless, into which you won’t buy?
Not that a world record from 1913 is any better for the CACA cause.https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0913/New-findings-overturn-Libya-temperature-record
An analysis of what had been for 90 years the hottest recorded temperature, in El Azizia, Libya in 1922, found serious flaws in how the heat was measured. The World Meteorological Organization has now handed the title back to Death Valley, in July 1913.
El Azizia, Libya, no longer holds the title for “world’s hottest temperature.” Today, that record passes to Death Valley, Calif.
No, a heat wave didn’t pass through the notoriously baking area yesterday. The new record-setting temperature of 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius) was actually recorded in Death Valley on July 10, 1913.
The temperature is only now being recognized because the previous record high temperature of 136.4 F (58 C) in El Azizia has been overturned by the World Meteorological Organization after an in-depth investigation by a team of meteorologists. The record temperature had long been thought dubious, but this new study has finally made the persuading case to overturn it, 90 years to the day after it was made.

Anth0ny,
Perhaps some Member of the AMS would be willing to send the AMS Executive Committee a variant of the following draft letter.
Richard
—————————————————————–
Dear Sirs:
I write to request a clarification of a statement in your recent letter to Rick Perry, esq., Secretarty of the US Department of Energy.
You say

It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide. The most important of these over the long term is CO2, whose concentration in the atmosphere is rising principally as a result of fossil-fuel combustion and deforestation.

Please state what you think to be that “extensive scientific evidence” because no such evidence has been published in the scientific literature to date.
In the 1990s Ben Santer and several others claimed to have found some such evidence(ref. Santer B, et al. ” “A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”. Nature, vol.382, p.39-46. 4 July 1996)
but that was soon shown to be an artifact of improper data selection(ref. Michaels P & Knappenberger P. Nature. vol.384, 12 Dec 1996)
and, also, the brief period of a warm trend selected out by Santer et al was largely explainable by known natural events and not induced through any man-made cause(ref. Rainer-Weber G. Nature. vol.384, 12 Dec 1996) .
Since then much research has been conducted world-wide in attempt to find some – any – empirical evidence to support the suggestion that human activity is a discernible cause of change of global climate over the last half century. This research has cost more than $2.5 billion per year and has failed to find any such evidence.
However, you claim to possess “extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide”. Please state what you think to be this evidence which you claim to possess and provide reference(s) to it.
And I ask you to note that opinions – whether written in words or computer code – are only evidence that their providers hold those opinions and are not substitutes for empirical evidence of reality.
Yours faithfully
XXXXX

Good questions, richard. If they have this “extensive scientific evidence” as they claim, then it should be easy to provide it to everyone.
But I’m like you. I have seen no evidence demonstrating any connection between human-caused CO2 and the Earth’s climate. And I’ve been looking for it for a long time.
I started out looking for the evidence of human-caused Global Cooling back in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Didn’t see any evidence of such then, and now that the climate is warming, the alarmists have turned around 180 degrees and now claim humans are the cause of the warming. But there’s no evidence this is the case, either.
The only “evidence” they really can point to is the Hockey Stick chart, and of course, we all know the Hockey Stick chart has been dishonestly manipulated to the point that it is useless as evidence. It has degenerated into an advertisement for CAGW.
I want to see the evidence of CAGW that AMS claims to have. They sound so sure of themselves.

Perhaps the AMS could publish a list of the scientific evidence/studies they think establishes that CO2 is affecting the Earth’s climate.
Then WUWT can systematically debunk every one of them and let’s see what they have to say after that.

The Nautilus survived all five major extinction events. Probably because it descended into the depths and ate all the carrion that drifted down from the surface. Man is but a blink in geologic time. The Nautilus will likely still be around after humans are gone.
This debate over CO2 is irrelevant to the Nautilus and some of the other survivors of the last five major mass extinction events.
Sometimes when an article raises my blood pressure a tad, I realize that in the overall scheme of things, it really won’t matter. Humans have lived a fraction of the time the dinosaurs did.
Our modern lives are likely due to high CO2 levels in the past that allowed land and aqueous plant life to thrive and store huge amounts of energy for our use. Lucky us.
But human time is short compared to say glass sponges that can live 2,000 to 6,000 years deep in the oceans. Life will go on. With or without humans.
Enjoy the day.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus#Fossil_generahttps://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautilus

Did you ever think that this “multiple lines of evidence” canard is a little like when you tell you kids, “There are many reasons why we can’t go to Disney World.” When the kids ask, “What reasons.” you just brush them off by replying, “Oh, sweetie, they are just too numerous to mention.”

Does anyone know if the AMS gets any federal funding like the National Academy of Science does? A quick Google search did not yield any evidence to me that it does, but I could be wrong. If so, how much?
I think it would be interesting for Secretary Perry to mention any such funding to the AMS in a letter to them if AMS does not demonstrate any interest in acknowledging the scientific issues and problems with the CAGW issue. People sometimes can change their tune when their health of their pocketbook is at stake.

Yet there has only been approximately 17 years of warming in the last 67 yrs (1980-1997), and that was two decades ago despite the rapid rise in CO2 since. The lack of warming in the 21st century has been confirmed by the new Santer, Man, Mears et al. paper. I’m not saying that CO2 doesn’t have a warming effect, but if it is the ‘primary cause’ of climate change then why has it had such a minimal effect since 1950? If the warming attributable has been hidden by other natural factors then CO2 obviously isn’t the ‘primary caue’ of climate change.
Perhaps the AMS are blinded by false assumptions that aren’t borne out by the reality of empirical evidence. It is exactly because they reject sceptical debate by citing a false ‘consensus’ on the issue that they reach the wrong conclusion. Maybe they should let their members vote on the issue instead of the AMS making unsubstantiated, opinionated statements on their behalf.

Magoo wrote: “Yet there has only been approximately 17 years of warming in the last 67 yrs (1980-1997)”
Where have you been for the last 3+ years? Still drinking Lord Monckton’s Kool Aid about the Pause? Haven’t you noticed he hasn’t been around to serve that brew lately?
The recent El Ninos drove surface temperature to a peak 0.5 K (!) above the 2001-2013 average. The descent from the peak has left current temperature (13 month average) at least 0.2 K above that during 2001-2013. The 99 La Nina following the 97/98 El Nino caused a fall to the earlier baseline. With those three years at or near the end of any regression, future resurrection of the Pause will be extremely unlikely. It would take a 0.7 K fall in temperature to counterbalance the recent rise. The warming trend for the two decades since the 97/98 El Nino is now essentially the same as for the two decades that preceded it, approximately 0.17 K/decade. When climate is suppose to represent long-term averages, I know it sounds crazy to say that three warm years could have such a big effect, but the peak warming (0.5 K) was so huge that it outweighs (at the end of a long lever arm) a decade with negligible warming.
ARGO is showing warming. Even UAH shows warming since 1997, though the trend is not statistically significant. The 38-year trend for UAH trend is smaller than land or ocean, but it is significant.
The Pause is dead; long live Lukewarming. Lukewarming has been occurring for the last four decades despite a decade of much slower (essentially negligible) warming.
Since the planet’s temperature shows a large amount of unforced variability (noise), it is common for trends covering a decade or two to be statistically insignificant. The absence of statistically significant warming is not proof of cooling or a constant temperature, it is simply evidence that the record is too short to draw any conclusions given the noise.

What all of the questions boil down to is “What would be happening if CO2 was not rising, compared to what is happening on the actual Earth?”
No one knows, and the models have failed to demonstrate that they can inform us.
In fact, they have demonstrated that they are incapable of informing us.
And the climate science establishment has demonstrated that they are mostly experts at little else but misleading and misinforming us.

Another way to restate what you have pointed out regarding the ever changing word salad in the AR reports is to simply say that they make up whatever crap they want, and they have not even remained internally consistent.
No one should pay any attention to them.
The stark disparity between the summaries for policymakers and the body of the reports is all the evidence anyone needs of their disingenuousness.
So…they are biased, just guessing, and dishonest.
Any one of these makes them unreliable sources of information.
Whatever you call what they do…it aint science.

Menicholas: “No one knows, and the models have failed to demonstrate that they can inform us. In fact, they have demonstrated that they are incapable of informing us.”
IMO, the situation is different. On a planet with a chaotic climate system with limited long-term observations, it is extremely difficult to prove whether or not climate models are valid – or more precise – which of many climate models, if any, are useful for projecting the future. A strong El Nino can raise GMST by 0.5 K in a half year. At least some of the 1920-1945 warming (and earlier fluctuations) can’t be attributed to any known forcing. The Pause from 1945-1975 was probably not completely caused by rising aerosol. Climate models rarely produce hiatuses such as seen in the early 2000’s. We don’t know what causes phenomena like the LIA and MWP.
Chaotic systems don’t show a clear connection between cause and events, especially in the short-term. We don’t know whether climate models are “wrong” or “right”. Climate scientist have no business spreading their projections without a clear explanation of: their lack of validation, the arbitrary process by which they are parameterized, the significant disagreement between models and the fact that the best guess today is that the mean model is “running” hot compared with observations.
We don’t have proof that models have failed scientifically; they fail as a useful tool for policymaking and they fail in candor.

Andy: Respectfully, the problem with the AMS’s letter and many other statements is the non-quantitative descriptions about the role of CO2. In this letter, the no-quantitative “weasel word” is “primary”. AR5 said “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature from 1951 to 2010”. In doing so, they relied on climate models with an average ECS of 3.3 K, but admitted that the likely range for ECS is 1.5-4.5 K. (TCR is probably a better metric for recent global warming and its likely range is nearly as wide, 1.0-2.5 K.)
The problem for lukewarmers like me (I won’t claim to speak for others), is that the lower end of the likely range puts one smack one the edge of weasel words, such as: primary, at least half, most, principle, etc.
AR5 says that “the best estimate of the human-induced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period”. However, if the IPCC can’t offer a best estimate for ECS (and TCR), then it is logically inconsistent for them to offer a best estimate for the human-induced contribution to warming. To calculate that, multiples the uncertainty in TCR by the uncertainty in anthropogenic forcing.
You also wrote: “Science that fails to account for the possibility of being wrong is of no virtue.” We need to remember that policymakers often need to make decisions in the absence of a traditional level of scientific statistical significance. Neither the AMS nor the IPCC were elected to make such decisions: their job is to provide an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty. Policy decisions should be made by those elected to do so – taking into account science and many other factors. Some factors that aren’t the business of scientists include: cost-benefit, feasibility, the likely course other nations will follow given non-binding or binding agreements, inter-generational equity, the demonstrated inability – as demonstrated by Social Security – of our government to plan for more than a decade or two, central control vs the marketplace, etc. Scientists who don’t believe in the democratic process and believe elites like them should be making these decisions (by providing distorted information to policymakers and the public) logically should move to China – where decisions are made this way.

Menicholas: Thirty years ago, the IPCC first report said the amount of warming expected from rising GHGs was impossible to distinguish from natural variability. It wasn’t until their second report that Ben Santer slipped into the SPM a statement that there was an (unquantified) discernible human influence on climate, a conclusion that was inconsistent with the peer-reviewed body of the report – which speculated on how long it would take to conclusively attribute any warming to humans. AR3 was the first to make claims that more than half of warming was due to humans, a statement that has been repeated ever since with increasing confidence.
It may be that the Climategate emails, the obvious problems in the paleoclimatology studies publicized by ClimateAudit, the Himalayan disaster, and the antics of the environmental fringe have taken a toll. AR5: lowered the lower bound for ECS, predicted warming for the next two decades of only 0.3-0.7 K (and given the Pause, would represent the total warming for the first 1/3 of the century, a MWP was acknowledged without an unambiguous comparison to the current warming period, little confidence is expressed about hurricanes. 16 IPCC authors wrote a paper stating that observations of warming and forcing were inconsistent with the expectations of climate models. For AR6, modelers are expected – or the first time – to disclose how their models were actually tuned. Perhaps I am overly optimistic.

Frank,
I am unsure just what being a lukewarmer says about your views and opinions.
But I think it means a belief that CO2 will warm the Earth, but that it will not be that bad, or we can cope with it best by adapting to the changes (are they inevitable in the lukewarmer view, or just possible?) that are coming.
But I think you are making a mistake to take any notions of IPCC published “likely ranges” as being anything more than the wild guesses of people with a certain well defined agenda…to prove global warming, not to ascertain the truth.
Earth history, the ice core data, the modern temperature records, the records of historical changes over the past few thousand years…and many other lines of evidence…lead me to believe that CO2 does not control the temperature patterns in the atmosphere.
-That a cycle of cooling is far likelier than decades of continued warmer or even flat temps. (Outside of Mikey Mann’s imagination, the Earth does not really “do” flat…at least not for long)
-That whatever effect it does or does not have is minor and far smaller than natural variation.
-That natural variations over the past several thousand years have not been adequately elucidated, and in the past twenty to thirty years much effort has indeed been made to obscure and obfuscate what really happened…the when’s, where’s, whys and how much’s.
-That warmer temperature regimes are better, and not a problem at all.
-And that higher CO2 is a huge net plus for plants, tress, crops, and therefore for life and for human civilization and the biosphere in general.

“Thirty years ago, the IPCC first report said the amount of warming expected from rising GHGs was impossible to distinguish from natural variability. It wasn’t until their second report that Ben Santer slipped into the SPM a statement that there was an (unquantified) discernible human influence on climate, a conclusion that was inconsistent with the peer-reviewed body of the report – which speculated on how long it would take to conclusively attribute any warming to humans. AR3 was the first to make claims that more than half of warming was due to humans, a statement that has been repeated ever since with increasing confidence.”
Yeah, one guy inserted his personal opinion, that human CO2 was changing the Earth’s climate, into the IPCC summary report, in direct contradiction of the statements made by the IPCC scientists in the actual report, and it has become accepted fact among the credulous since that time. I don’t think this can be overemphasized enough.
This CAGW narrative has been dishonest from the start. There’s lying in the IPCC report about humans causing the climate to change, and lying with the Global Surface temperature charts (Hockey Stick) to make it look like humans are causing the climate to change.
Deliberate lying. Harmful lying.

The fact that Mann’s Hockey Stick contradicted all the paleo studies to that date (and the written historical record as well) and that it failed to elicit even one protest from the politicized climate “scientists” has soured me on their integrity. They’ve got a lot of ‘splanin to do.

Menicholas: Lukewarmer? Someone who believes future changes will probably be smaller and less impactful that the IPCCs central estimates.
The IPCC was founded by a bunch of activist scientists, and each generation of insiders who control their rules and SPMs picks those who follow them. Their SPMs are not scientific documents, because (as Schneider infamously said), ethical scientists tell the whole truth with all of the caveats. The SPMs certainly miss the biggest caveat – one that belongs at the beginning of many statements: “If our climate models are correct, then …”
Nevertheless, I don’t think the IPCC makes up any numbers. There science can’t provide policymakers with reliable definitive scientific answers, so they improperly pick and choose so as to promote restrictions on emissions.
If you were a climate scientist who recognized that a wide range of possible climate futures were consistent with your understanding of climate, would you be tempted to emphasize bad scenarios so you wouldn’t be blamed for any catastrophe? Schneider once referred to emissions reductions as buying insurance against the possibility that climate sensitivity could be high – but it isn’t the job of science to decide who must buy such insurance. Poor countries and less affluent citizens in developed countries can’t afford insurance, but ivory tower academics don’t have any contact with them.

This just utterly fails to hold together logically. If full blown AGW catastrophism falls into the range of natural variability ala Little Ice Age, Medieval Warm period, Roman Warm period, Minoan warm period or Holocene Maximum and the entire theory fails on the test of Tropospheric Hotspot and nearly 20 years of zero warming ( give me a break on .2C being accurate or meaningful), then your stand on the cause of lukewarmism is about like comparing a slightly humid day to the Biblical Flood! A ridiculous example of the need of some human minds to have an emergency to deal with.

“Neither the AMS nor the IPCC were elected to make such decisions: their job is to provide an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty.”
The AMS is obviously not doing its job. Instead of an accurate assessment of scientific [un]certainty, Mr. Perry received a letter full of lies, appeals to authority and contradictory statements.

Well, they did get this part correct, “…carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are the primary cause [of global warming].” They just conveniently did not mention that water vapor was the main driver.

Water vapor responds to warming and amplifies it. The average water vapor molecule remains in the atmosphere for 9 days, a fact that can easily be checked by dividing the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by the total rainfall every year. With a nine-day half-life, there is no way for water vapor to remain in the atmosphere for long enough to drive warming. Warming produces more water vapor – at least in areas that are well-mixed and near liquid water such as the boundary layer over the ocean. There is no guarantee that water vapor is or is not rising in the upper troposphere.

The half life of water vapour is meaningless when one molecule falling out of the sky is replaced by one molecule entering the atmosphere on a continual basis. It’s like saying cars can’y cause traffic because they’re only on the road for 45 minutes at a time on average> C’mon man! And regardless, water vapour plays a critical role in transporting heat to altitude, half the job of getting to space. So it is actually a regulator with warming and cooling functions.

YHGTBSM!
On earth we have this process called the hydrological cycle, which operates to keep the atmosphere on average on the order of 100 times more water vapor in it than CO2.
Going from three CO2 molecules per 10,000 dry air molecules to four has virtually no effect, since over much or the planet there are 400 H2O molecules per 10,000 dry air molecules (~7808 N2, 2095 O2, 93 Argon and 4 CO2, with trace amounts of other gases).

Let’s not forget that water vapor is also much lighter than air, and as it increases in the atmosphere to levels common in the tropics, this air becomes very easily lifted into vast thunderstorms, and the more water vapor there is, the stronger and higher these storms reach.
Tropical thunderstorms commonly reach the top of the troposphere and beyond. Some go several miles above the top of the troposphere.
These storms transport gigantic amounts of energy above most of the atmosphere, where it is then lost into space.
Most of the Sun’s energy that reaches the surface does so in the tropics, and much of this then evaporates water, which feeds large storms that transport heat most of the way to space.
One might suppose that a principle concern of climate scientists might be to determine detailed specifics of all of this.
But I think that if they did, there would be a lot less to be alarmed about.

Menicholas June 23, 2017 at 7:53 pm
Only educated idiots or liars like Mann could ignore the fact that the sun shining on the moist tropical oceans is the engine that drives earth’s climate, not an extra molecule of an essential trace gas per ten thousand air molecules.
When solar activity is higher for a number of cycles, the climate system will warm the planet, thanks to the heat stored in the oceans and released through its circulation. When it is lower for a number of cycles, there will be cooling. The heat capacity of the oceans is gigantic. Of the air, not so much.

“Not all of it, since photons are emitted in all directions, some of it makes it’s way back down to the surface.”
Sure, some does.
What is the temperature up there?
And what, therefore, is the average energy of these photons?
Is air with CO2 and H2O in it transparent to these wavelengths?
So how far does it go down before hitting and thermalizing a molecule?
Consider too that during these thunderstorms, which are very large, there is water in the condensed phase in huge clouds occupying most of the space in the downwards directions.
The point is not that every bit of energy that gets up there has only one place to go…it is that when there is more energy available at the surface, larger amounts of energy laden moist air is transported quickly to the top of the troposphere. And from there the path of least resistance is up, and there is not much resistance in that direction once up there.

Micro6500: Correlation is not proof of causation. Your graph doesn’t demonstrate anything. When the dew point and temperature is the same, then relative humidity is 100%. A constant difference means that relative humidity is roughly constant, but less than 100%. The relative humidity in the boundary layer is determined by the rate of evaporation and the rate at which water is transported into the free atmosphere above. And the rate of evaporation goes down as relative humidity approaches 100% (when no evaporation occurs)
And when the biggest fluctuation in your data is caused by an increase in the number of stations reporting, you need to find a different way to process your data. Use grid cells to generate a constant one data point per unit area.

The green house gases can’t warm a planet they stop 20% of the total firelight of the sun from reaching.
They can’t warm a planet they scrub of heat through conduction. All the gases of the atmosphere are many degrees colder than the Earth.
They can’t warm a planet they create phase change refrigeration of. Green House Gases not only block 20% total available warming firelight to the planet they set up a phase change refrigeration cycle that refrigerates not just the surface but the entire Nitrogen-Oxygen bath at large.
NO gases warm the planet. None of them. They’re all many degrees colder than the planet,
and there isn’t any such thing anywhere – in all thermodynamics – of insulation between a fire and rock,
making that rock warmer, by making less light reach it, to warm it.
Every single word
Every single syllable
Every single symbol
of any string of characters alleging the atmosphere can warm the planet in any way at all is utter falsehood. It is physically impossible for a
thermally conductive,
light blocking
fluid bath
to warm anything placed in it, which is many degrees warmer than the bath itself.
Most CERTAINLY adding more light blocking insulation
so it never reaches the light warmed rock in question
never warmed the rock
it let less light warm.

“Multiple lines of evidence” (unidentified) is the last refuge of a spinner who cannot cite even a single line of evidence, a scientific paper, an equation or other mathematical proof, or even a specified individual authority. It sounds like pure waffle.

The AMS should pole their members on the question. If they don’t they have no business writing such categorical letters. Heads of such organizations are usually more adept at politics than they are adept at the central subject of their organization.

Scott,
Most of their problems would be solved by providing them with an office with a window.
Then they could look out the window and see if it was night or day, wet or dry, etc.
Then their forecasting would be far more accurate than it normally is.

Whenever those thermobillies want to show me another time in all thermodynamics when light refractive insulation made a light warmed rock warmer by letting less warming light reach it
then they’re not the lying ignoratti trash I have to warn my kids about trying to teach them less light warming a light warmed rock makes it warmer than when more light warmed it.

Their arguement is politics and not science. Based upon the paleoclimate record and the model studies that have been performed one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which Mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero.. The radiant greenhouse effect upon which the AGW conjecture is based has not been observed anywhere in the solar system hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.

The radiant greenhouse effect upon which the AGW conjecture is based has not been observed anywhere in the solar system hence the AGW conjecture is science fiction. If CO2 really affected climate then one would expect that the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years would have caused at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened.

The GHG water vapor works every clear night to limit how cool it gets, but it also eleminates almost all the effect from the increase in co2 with negative feedback.

“What happens when heresy is actually correct? That is the question!”
A bigger question may be what happens when warmistas are correct?
The answer is “No one nows…it has never happened!”
The funniest jokes are the ones that are true!

micro6500 June 23, 2017 at 1:36 pm
If you’re the correct heretic Bruno, the Catholic Church burns you alive.
If you’re the correct heretic Servetus, John Calvin burns you alive.
Hanging is clearly too good for heretics in Christianity.

The original argument that led many to accept primacy of CO2 was the correlation displayed by Mann’s fraudulent hockey stick bar graph. So now these meteorologists (who are NOT climatologists) claim that despite a lack of correlation, CO2 remains the primary driver of
warming. What warming? The history of science is the history of stmbles and bumbles and consensus opinions that are eventually shredded. To have a true consensus, the prevalent science’s theories must be near perfect in their ability to predict. It’s surprising how many very good predictive sciences, such as physics and astronomy, are riddled with non-consensus thinking.
You would think that meteorologists, of all people, would never make any claims about predictability. But NOOOOOOO!!!!!!! ………….

Maybe when we have the warmistas licked, and the CAGW fraud is dead and buried, we can turn our attention to some other ideas for which there is no direct evidence, ad hoc speculations masquerade as “The Truth”, and yet lots of apparently well educated people believe it uncritically.
Dark energy and dark matter come to mind.

I will state up front: The following is the best that I have been able to find — errors are certainly always a possibility under such circumstances. Do any of you have what you believe to be better information?
The best information that I have been able to find indicates that the atmosphere contains 75 to 100 gaseous H2O molecules (water vapor) for every CO2 molecule that is present in the atmosphere. Do I have that close to correct?

The average H2O content of the troposphere is 10,000 to 30,000 ppm (1-3%), ranging from 40,000 in the moist tropics to just a few ppm over the polar deserts. So taking the lower average, there are about 25 H2O molecules per CO2 molecule, but 100 times as many in the wettest air. CO2’s absorption bands also largely overlap with water vapor’s, so CO2 isn’t a pimple on the posterior of the major GHG, H2O.
There is less water vapor in the stratosphere.
You might expect that a fourth molecule of CO2 per 10,000 dry air molecules would have an effect over the polar deserts, where H2O is scarce in the cold air, but in fact this hasn’t been observed. There has been no warming at the South Pole since records have been kept there.

Air at a dew point of 86F contains nearly 5% water (4.86 %) IIRC.
Not sure if this is by weight or by mole fraction.
If by weight, it is even more molecules than one in twenty since water is so much lighter than air.
No?

The wet tropics rarely average that temperature globally, with half the planet in the dark. Although nights don’t cool off in the moist tropics, due to all that water in the air.
Locally H2O could be well above 4%, but that’s the figure usually given for the average in that climatic zone, which covers a lot of the earth. The polar deserts are much smaller.

On a global basis I think that’s an accurate statement. The idea that we can talk about 1 or 2 decimal places of temperature change on a global basis for ANY time period is laughable hubris. Only liars or idiots would say anything different.

The number of significant figures they use would have gotten a very low grade (definitely failing, maybe even a big fat round zero) in any science class I ever took, and I took a whole lot of them.
It is really unbelievable.

I’m not quite sure what has happened to Keith Seitter from the days he was a Professor of Meteorology at the then University of Lowell-Massachusetts. As a student of his in the mid-eighties, I didn’t think he was in the camp of either global warming nor cooling. He wasn’t even a believer that the ozone hole was a result of CFCs, as being pushed in the media at the time. He was a good, level-headed professor from which I learned a lot over those few years. I doubt he would’ve endorsed this type of letter back then. I’m not sure what has changed with him over the years; but, I don’t like the direction the AMS has gone under him. I voted my non-support by not renewing my AMS membership a long time ago.

The AMS is only seen via MSM.
We know who owns the MSM.
They’re NOT skeptics.
AMS must toe the MSM line.
That’s where their bread is buttered.
AMS: American Meteorological Society
MSM: Main Stream Media

The AMS letter seems to have been written for the benefit of our
beloved Senator Al Franken to counter-balance the embarrassing,
laughable and seemingly unmentionable testimony on climate
science Mike Mann offered “under oath” a few weeks ago.https://thinkprogress.org/al-franken-vs-rick-perry-climate-science-69fbc39619d4
Senator Franken tried to brow-beat Energy Secretary Rick Perry with
the letter’s contents as if the information was a codicil that came down
the mountain with Moses.
I can’t tell if Senator Al “…he only took tips” Franken was manipulated
to proffer the letter at the hearing, or if the AMS was responding to a
request from Franken for ammunition to feed the media and the
greens.
Pure politics !

The AMS has become political, I have been a Meteorologist for over 30 years, and I am the biggest denier of AGW, and all the Meteorologist’s I know feel the same. The whole theory is ridiculous, and damn near every observation shows this.

“..The rapid change in climate in the last half century is human induced..”
I have begun to as the question as to what climate changer are they talking about.
The alarmists have claimed:
More hurricanes which has not happened
More tornadoes which has not happened
Acceleration of Sea level which has not happened since seal level rise has been steady per gauges
Streets in Manhattan under sea water
Strife for Polar Bears which has been disproved with solid evidence.
Arctic ice free by now which has not happened
Himalayan ice disappearing (yes, the IPPC included that with zero peer review)
Droughts which have recently ended and have been normal over the years (California)
Seas becoming acidic
Crop failures
Extinction of Penguins
Kids will not know what snow is
Ski lift closures
And many more http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htme
Of course there has been modest warming since the late 1800’s when the earth was brutally cold, why do they start at that time rather than the medieval warm period?
The AMS throws out the climate change term, of course over history climate does change, like ice ages. What climate change are they claiming in the last 50 years which is only 2/3 of my lifetime?
Where is the claimed rapid climate change (AMS claim)?
If temperature change were significant why do they have to manipulate the data?

Obviously they are sufficiently well educated in these issues to know shit from shinola…and yet they stomp purposefully through the whole mountain of horseshit.
There is only one explanation: They are lying liars who lie, and they are telling big whoppers and they know it.

Good point. I always said that the so called “scientists” would possibly have some credibility if they debunked the many obvious wild claims by Al Gore, instead of keeping silent apparently motivated by greed or “the end justifies the means”. Where is the integrity never speaking out about hockey sticks, climategate, karlization, data adjustments, other fake claims, etc.

Yeah, these fools – along with the thirty or so international scientific institutions that explicitly endorsed the ICCP’s assessments – should stick to politics, and leave the science to the politicians. Er… hang on…

From the graphs alone (eyeballing, using the top edge of my screen), three things jump out from looking at the period 1979 to about 2014 (avoiding the end period ENSO and Blob stuff):
1) The surface temperature anomalies run a trend of less than 1 degree C per century; from about – 0.05 to about + 0.25 degree C over the 33 year period.
2) The SST temperature anomalies run a trend of less than 1 degree C per century; from about 0.05 to about 0.35 degree C over the 33 year period.
3) ARGO seems to run about 0.2 degree C lower than SST; from about 0.15 to about 0.35 degree C.
Whatever drove ocean temperatures, they are not in any way alarming.

After several email exchanges with Seitter, it’s clear that his position is that climate science has been settled by peer review is immutable and that he seems unwilling to acknowledge that peer review can be flawed, especially when its being shaped by money, politics and fear.
He seems to deny that the science is controversial which further bolsters my observation that the first line of defense warmists have against skeptics is to deny that a controversy exists which provides the rationalization to avoid having to examine and explain contraindicative theory, data and analysis.
The second line of defense is claim that work like mine and many other skeptics isn’t ‘peer reviewed’ and thus deserves no consideration. This is bizarre since most of my work consists of falsifying a high sensitivity and as far as I’m concerned, falsification tests are peer review of a hypothesis. So since when is peer review subject to peer review itself? The burden of proof is on the purveyor of a hypothesis to either adequately explain away the failed tests of its predictions or modify the theory. But then again, as we all know, the scientific method has been absent from climate science since the inception of the IPCC.

I’ve showed you my work. I sent it to Joe Bastardi, got a response like “Yeah, I can see that”, then “but it’s never been about the science”
Or something like that.
But, he’s right. What I found shows water vapor compensating every night to limit how cool it gets, and Co2 little to no impact on Min T. That’s why it’s been so hard to measure sensitivity, if co2 goes up, water vapor just condenses a little less water, as temps regulate to dew points.

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